Red Cathedral

Have you ever been to a carnaval parade?  There are several genres. You've got the stylish & elegant Venetian style parades and there are those where the people take back the right to satire everything they see in the world around them. The best known & biggest ( 105k spectators on Sunday ) carnaval parade in my country is the carnaval in Aalst which happened at the same moment as the one in Tongeren.  But I took my electric step and vroomed to the eldest city in Belgium: Atuatuca Tungrorum ( founded 7 BC ) and I enjoyed myself. . Just like many other regions, Limburg has a rich carnaval history and you could really see the people yearn for this parade. The 2019 canaraval got cancelled last minute due to a storm. 2020-21 Had a pandemic. Apparently there was a tiny last-minute carnaval parade in 2022.. yet I seem to have missed it.. and not just me. Hence the recently invented Dutch word knaldrang was almost tangible in the air: people wanted to celebrate,...

My first event coverage after a long recovery from surgery. C19 had made most of the local carnaval parades impossible these last years and earlier this month a car crashed into a carnaval group killing 6 and hurting dozens more. But you can't destroy  the true carnaval spirit that lives in the smaller cities & rural villages of Europe. In the past decennia I've covered carnaval parades in the Le Nord of France, in Malta, in Italy and last weekend: at 12km from my home, in a tiny town in the middle of fields and meadows called Veldwezelt . And they know how to celebrate.. The pictures are HERE, on flickr A one minute video is HERE, on Clapper Some samples?  ;   . . More pictures are on Flickr

Do you enjoy the baroque Venetian carnival costumes of the " Carnevale di Venezia "? The costuming group " Regards Vénitiens " travels every year from Namur to Venice to showcase their own costumes. But since these costumes are too much work to stay in the closet an entire year, they make it a habit to have parades, photo walks and photoshoots troughout the year. Last weekend they came to visit Bruges, the city that was named " The Venice of the North " in the Middle-Ages. And they were besieged by a legion of photographers & photoclubs. Who can blame them: it have been 2 strange years for events & shoots. For me it was the 1st event-test for the new Sony A7IV There are 3 short videos on Clapper: Video 1 Video 2 Video 3 And a load of pictures on Flickr .  Some Samples: . .